


Grogu and the Shiny Man

by htonl



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, The Mandalorian (TV)
Genre: Gen, canon-typical grogu eating frogs
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-16
Updated: 2021-03-22
Packaged: 2021-03-24 11:35:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,082
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30071643
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/htonl/pseuds/htonl
Summary: The first time Grogu saw the Shiny Man, he knew that everything was going to be better now.The Mandalorianfrom Grogu's perspective.
Relationships: Din Djarin & Grogu | Baby Yoda
Comments: 16
Kudos: 78





	1. The Shiny Man

**Author's Note:**

> I haven't finished a single piece of writing in many years, but we're giving this a go. Ideally it'll be the whole show, and I'll probably switch it up with some Din perspective scenes at some point. I just have Thoughts and Opinions about these characters, and I decided this was how I was going to get them out.

The first time Grogu saw the Shiny Man, he knew that everything was going to be better now.

\---

Everything had been bad for a _long_ time. Longer than everything had been good, before. The people Grogu saw either hated him and tried to hurt him, or didn’t care about him at all, even when they were feeding him and helping him. Sometimes people who didn’t care about him tried to hurt him, which were the scariest kind of people. And no matter whether a person was helping him or hurting him, they got worse whenever he used the Force around them.

The people Grogu was with now didn’t try to hurt him, but they weren’t really nice either. They didn’t like it when he made noise or chased frogs, and they made him take naps way more often than he was tired. None of them could feel the Force, so they didn’t understand him when he said so. They just felt annoyed at him when he tried to stay up.

Grogu was lying down in his pram during one of these naps, pouting and restless because he wasn’t tired at _all_ , when things changed. He felt the people in the courtyard in front of the building get really focused all of a sudden, and then he felt them start dying.

Grogu _hated_ when people started dying. It usually meant he was going to be with different people, and sometimes the new people hurt him. He got really quiet and huddled under his blanket, and a moment later his pram moved. He knew the person who had moved it was putting something over the top, but then the person went away really quickly. They joined a group of people on the roof. Grogu stopped listening to people with the Force as soon as he felt that, though. He pressed his hands over his ears and tried not to hear the blaster fire outside.

It only took a few minutes for the noises to stop. They had stopped a couple times in the middle, but Grogu could tell that this time was different because he heard a loud noise like something big fell down. There were two more quick blaster shots, and then Grogu knew for certain that he would be with new people, because he couldn’t all the way stop hearing the people he was familiar with, and they were all dead now.

A voice came from the room outside Grogu’s pram. “Anyone else?” it said. It was a mechanical voice, but not a droid voice. Grogu took his hands off his ears and blinked up into the darkness. It was a nice voice. It sounded like it belonged to a nice person.

“The tracking fob is still active,” said another voice after a moment. This one was definitely a droid voice. “My sensors indicate that there is a lifeform present.”

There were the sounds of footsteps and beeping, and then Grogu’s pram moved forward and up. The top slid down, one half to either side. Grogu blinked in the sudden light, and the nice voice spoke again.

“Wait. They said 50 years old.”

“Species age differently. Perhaps it could live many centuries.”

The nice voice sounded kind of confused, but the droid voice was completely flat. Grogu sat up, pushing his blanket aside, and that was when he saw the Shiny Man for the first time.

The Shiny Man was _shiny!_ He was wearing armor that gleamed on his head and shoulder, and armor that was shiny where it wasn’t painted red on the rest of him. And he was shiny in the Force, too! Grogu hadn’t felt anyone like that since the good times, and that was _forever_ ago. He didn’t remember what it meant when people were shiny in the Force, but he _liked_ it.

“Sadly, we’ll never know,” the droid voice continued. Grogu looked towards the voice and saw a weird droid. It was tall and all dull metal and red lights and holes, and it tried to point a blaster at Grogu but the Shiny Man hit its hand so it put it back down.

“No. We’ll bring it in alive.” The nice voice was coming from the Shiny Man! Grogu knew right then that the Shiny Man was going to help him, and not like the people who were dead now had helped him. The Shiny Man was going to make things _good._

“The commission was quite specific,” said the droid. Grogu turned to look at it again. “The asset must be terminated.” It raised the blaster, pointing it straight at Grogu’s head – but before Grogu had the chance to be scared again, the Shiny Man had pulled a different blaster from a holster on his hip and shot the droid straight through the chest!

The droid collapsed, and the Shiny Man put his blaster back. His helmet had a dark visor that was shaped like a T, and the visor was pointed right at Grogu. The Shiny Man hadn’t even looked at the droid while he stopped it from hurting Grogu. He stretched out one finger, slowly, towards Grogu. Grogu reached back, reaching out with the Force at the same time. Their fingers didn’t quite touch, but Grogu felt the Shiny Man anyway.

Grogu didn’t understand the feelings that were coming from the Shiny Man. There were a lot of them, more than Grogu had known one person could feel at one time! But none of the feelings were cold. Grogu knew that cold feelings were bad for him. They meant that the person might hurt him, or forget to feed him, or do bad things. All of the Shiny Man’s feelings were warm, and some of them were confused, but none of them made Grogu feel bad.

Grogu made a happy sound with his mouth and tried to say hi to the Shiny Man with the Force. He said it as loud as he could, straight at the Shiny Man’s head, but the Shiny Man didn’t seem to hear. He just stood there for another few seconds before dropping his hand and turning away. Grogu made a quieter sad sound, but he wasn’t too disappointed. He hadn’t had anyone he could talk to in a long time anyway. It didn’t matter, since the Shiny Man was definitely good, and was definitely going to help Grogu.

The Shiny Man pressed some buttons on the red armor on his arm, and then pressed a button on the front of Grogu’s pram. When he turned and walked out of the room, over the door that was lying on the ground for some reason, Grogu’s pram followed along a few feet behind. Grogu cooed in excitement and stood up. He had some trouble, because the pram was moving, but he got right up against the front and stood clutching the rim, looking all around. He hadn’t been outside the building since he’d been with different people, and it had been a long time.

This whole planet was colored red, just like the Shiny Man. There were big cliffs all around the building, and the Shiny Man walked right into a ravine between the cliffs. Grogu looked all around at the blue sky, and the red rock of the cliffs curving overhead, and the red dirt in the ravine, and the grey back of the Shiny Man. He had a cape! Grogu thought it looked cool, swinging along behind the Shiny Man, with those little holes near the bottom.

Grogu was excited to be outside, but the Shiny Man kept walking for a long time, and the ravine didn’t change at all. Sometimes there would be an intersection with other ravines, and the Shiny Man would look up at the sky and down at his red arm armor and pick a way and keep walking, and the new ravine wasn’t ever any different. Grogu was just starting to get really bored when he noticed something moving out of the corner of his eye.

He turned his head and spotted a lizard, about the size of a frog, following Grogu and the Shiny Man. It was a dull yellow with brown spots, and it blended into the red everything really well. Grogu thought it looked like it would be really good to eat, especially because it was frog-sized. Nothing could be as good as a frog, though. Grogu was just thinking about how to maybe get down from his pram while it was moving when he saw another lizard – and another one! And another one!

Grogu babbled in excitement as a whole _swarm_ of lizards came running out of the rocks and down onto the floor of the ravine. There were so many of them! If Grogu focused, he could feel them with the Force, tiny little specks of life like stars but on the ground. They were all following Grogu and the Shiny Man, until suddenly they all scattered and the Shiny Man abruptly stopped walking.

There was a different feeling coming off of the Shiny Man now – not the confused feelings from the building or the contemplative feelings from the long walk, but a tense sort of feeling that Grogu was familiar with from other people in other places. The Shiny Man slowly turned his head to look backward, and while he was looking away Grogu saw some people jump across the top of the ravine. By the time the Shiny Man had turned back, though, they were gone again. Grogu huddled in his pram a bit and whimpered.

Grogu only felt the new person a second before they jumped down from the top of the cliff and tried to hit the Shiny Man with a big axe. The Shiny Man seemed to also know the new person was there, though, because he turned and tried to point his blaster at them. Their big axe knocked it out of his hand, and then the Shiny Man made a gesture like he was pushing Grogu’s pram backwards and the pram _went._ Grogu wasn’t ready for the movement, and when it stopped by the side of the ravine, he fell over backwards.

By the time Grogu had struggled upright again, there were a lot of people lying around in the mud. But not the Shiny Man! One person was running right at Grogu, big axe hoisted above their head, and the Shiny Man calmly raised his rifle and disintegrated them right before they reached Grogu. Then he just stood there, his chest rising and falling like he was panting, and stared at something that had fallen out of the disintegrated person’s clothes. Grogu looked down and saw that it was a squareish thing with a little triangle antenna. There was a red light flashing on the front.

After a few moments, the Shiny Man flipped his rifle over his shoulder and did something that attached it to the strap across his chest. He was feeling complicated things again, although Grogu couldn’t feel them as clearly as he had in the building. What Grogu _did_ feel loud and clear was a tiny seed of anger beginning to grow in the Shiny Man’s chest. That was scary. Nothing good ever happened when the people Grogu was with got angry. Grogu huddled down in his pram and watched with wide eyes as the Shiny Man found and smashed every little rectangle with a flashing light, then made another gesture towards the pram and stalked off. The pram followed.

It took a very long time for anything to happen after that. Long enough that Grogu stopped being so scared of the Shiny Man’s anger, which had gone out of focus anyway, and started paying attention to the world around him again. They had left the ravines behind a short while before, and now they were just on a big flat red muddy dusty plain. The sun was also starting to go down. There was a ridge of rock far off in the distance in front, but it seemed like the Shiny Man didn’t think he could walk that far tonight, because it wasn’t long before he stopped and got a lamp out from… somewhere… and sat down with it.

Now that the Shiny Man was sitting still and concentrating on it – he got out something that sparked at one end and started poking at it – Grogu could feel that he was injured. There was a wound on his left arm, below where the red shoulder plate ended, that Grogu could see through a rip in the Shiny Man’s clothes. The Shiny Man also radiated pain, that spiked in little bursts whenever the sparky thing sparked. Grogu spent a few seconds thinking about it, but he decided that he was going to help the Shiny Man not hurt any more. The Shiny Man was good, and he hadn’t done anything bad when he was angry, and he shouldn’t be hurt.

Grogu carefully climbed out of his pram and dropped to the ground. He made a little _thump_ when he hit the dirt, but the Shiny Man didn’t seem to notice. He had taken a break from using the sparky thing on his wound to look in the other direction, panting a little. Grogu walked up close and reached out his hand and started to close his eyes and reach out with his mind, but then the Shiny Man’s helmet turned and the T-visor landed on Grogu and the Shiny Man batted Grogu’s hand down and picked him up and put him back in the pram.

Grogu pouted a little, because didn’t the Shiny Man want to stop hurting? Plus, wounded people had trouble fighting. Grogu knew this. The Shiny Man didn’t seem to, though, or didn’t care, because he just went and sat back down and picked up the sparky thing again. He didn’t start using it on his wound again – he picked up his chest armor that he must have taken off when his back was turned earlier and started using the sparky thing on that instead. That was good because he wasn’t making himself hurt more, but it was bad because it wasn’t helping his wound. Grogu resolutely got out of his pram again and went over to heal the Shiny Man.

Once again, the moment the Shiny Man noticed Grogu standing on the ground, he picked him up and put him back in his pram. Grogu felt a flash of annoyance from the Shiny Man, and then he pressed a button on his arm armor and the pram’s top slid closed.

Grogu pouted again, at the dark inside of the pram and the closed top and the feeling of the Shiny Man outside doing things. He thought maybe the Shiny Man hadn’t understood what Grogu was trying to do, since he couldn’t feel the Force. Grogu thought about trying to use the Force to press the right button to open the pram up again, but he could feel that the Shiny Man was already lying down and starting to try to sleep. Grogu hadn’t had a nap all day and he _was_ pretty tired, so he decided that the Shiny Man had the right idea. He got under the blanket that was still in the pram and laid back and closed his eyes, and before he knew it he was asleep.


	2. The Shiny Ship

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Grogu still thought the Shiny Man was very good and cool, but Grogu also thought that maybe the Shiny Man should stop doing things that made him hurt._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This covers about five minutes of episode 2. I shudder to think how long this is going to be if I keep on in this vein.

When Grogu woke up the next morning, the pram was already moving. The top was down again and Grogu could see the blue sky stretching like a big bowl over the whole planet. That was new! Grogu hadn’t seen anything like that in a long time. He cooed happily up at it, and then the pram stopped and the Shiny Man’s helmet appeared in front of the sky.

“You’re awake,” the Shiny Man said. “You must be hungry. Here.” His hand appeared, brown glove with orange fingers holding something blocky that smelled like food.

Grogu sat up _fast_ and grabbed the food thing from the Shiny Man. He _was_ hungry! He hadn’t had anything to eat since lunch yesterday, right before the nap-that-wasn’t, and that had just been the boring baby food that those people had thought he should eat. Grogu didn’t know what this food was, but it wasn’t a bowl of tasteless mush, and that meant it was better than anything Grogu had eaten since the people before the baby food people. He bit down on the blocky food thing.

Actually, maybe the baby food would have been better.

Grogu made a noise that _clearly_ signaled his disgust and wrinkled his nose, looking up at the Shiny Man. “I know,” the Shiny Man sighed, “I don’t like ration bars either. But they’re all I’ve got. Eat up.” He turned, cape flapping behind him, and walked away. The pram gave a little jerk as it started to follow.

Grogu looked down at the… _ration bar_ … and made a sad noise. But he was still hungry, and he didn’t see any frogs or lizards around here, so he started gnawing on it. It was slow going; Grogu had to keep stopping to make disgusted faces and let the taste out of his mouth before taking the next bite.

As he ate, Grogu looked around. They were still on the big plain from last night, but that ridge in front was _way_ closer now. It was close enough that the Shiny Man was walking up a slope that led up the ridge by the time Grogu finished the ration bar, and it wasn’t long after that that they reached another slope going down into a little valley.

When the Shiny Man saw what was in the valley, he stiffened and walked a little faster until he got to the top of the slope, where he got down on one knee and took out a little scope. Grogu felt a bunch of emotions wash over him, anger-fear-distrust-despair-resolve, all in one big wave. Grogu looked down into the valley too. There were two ships down there, one _big_ one that was covered in dust and mud and one smaller one that was just as shiny as the Shiny Man – oh, that must be the Shiny Man’s ship! Except there were a bunch of people down there too, and they were taking all the shiny bits off the shiny ship and bringing them into the muddy ship.

The Shiny Man didn’t seem to like that. He flipped his rifle off his back, attached the scope to it, aimed carefully, and disintegrated one of the people carrying a ship part. Then, as the people who hadn’t been disintegrated started yelling and running around, the Shiny Man reached down to his right boot, pulled a rifle shell off of a strap on the outside, reloaded his rifle, aimed again, and disintegrated another person carrying a ship part.

As the Shiny Man reloaded again, one of the people in the valley pulled out a blaster and started shooting wildly at the top of the hill where the Shiny Man and Grogu were. The Shiny Man’s next shot sent that person’s cloak fluttering emptily to the ground.

Grogu watched all of this with wide eyes, turning back and forth between the Shiny Man and the people in the valley. He had seen a lot of people shoot a lot of other people, but he didn’t think he’d seen anything like this before – especially because, a moment later, the whole front of the muddy ship swung up like a door closing and the Shiny Man got up and started running down the hill as the muddy ship started driving away.

The Shiny Man felt less like _angry_ and more like _scared_ the second the muddy ship started moving, and he stopped again once he reached the bottom of the valley to aim at the back of the muddy ship and shoot again. It didn’t do anything to stop the muddy ship, but more than _angry_ or _scared_ the Shiny Man was all over _determined_ and he took off running again, chasing the people who had taken his shiny ship parts. He ran so fast he managed to jump up and grab onto part of the muddy ship and start climbing right up the side!

The pram sped up to follow the Shiny Man, and then sped up more to follow the muddy ship. Grogu didn’t think he’d ever gone this fast on a planet before. The wind blew his ears back and made his eyes sting, but he kept his eyes wide open so that he could watch the Shiny Man climbing up the side of the muddy ship. The Shiny Man was _so cool_. Grogu had never met _anyone_ before that was willing to _climb a ship_ to get their stuff back! And the Shiny Man was smart, too, and strong, and he didn’t fall off when the side of the muddy ship scraped a ridge of rock right where the Shiny Man had been a second before and he didn’t fall off when the people on the ship opened panels in the sides and threw things at him and he didn’t fall off when a person slammed a panel on his fingers and hit him with something that sparked and –

And he was on the top of the muddy ship! He had tossed two people off the side on the way but Grogu was pretty sure they were okay, and he had shot some kind of cable out of his arm armor to help the last half, and – but no, now he was falling, and there were blue sparks dancing over his armor and his blaster was falling next to him, and then he landed in the dirt and he stayed lying there for a long time even after Grogu’s pram finally caught up.

Grogu stood at the front of his pram and stared at the Shiny Man. He wasn’t even _awake_ and Grogu could feel how much that landing had hurt. Grogu still thought the Shiny Man was very good and cool, but Grogu also thought that maybe the Shiny Man should stop doing things that made him hurt. Grogu was just thinking about maybe trying to heal him while he was asleep and not able to put Grogu back in his pram, when the Shiny Man grunted and woke up.

The first thing he did was make a noise like he was noticing how hurt he was. Grogu sympathized. Noticing how hurt you were was the _worst_ part of being hurt. But then the Shiny Man turned to look at where the muddy ship was long gone, and turned again to look at Grogu, and Grogu stared as the Shiny Man made his hurt _go away_.

It wasn’t _gone_ gone, Grogu could tell the Shiny Man still felt it, but it was out of focus the way feelings were when you stopped thinking about them. Grogu hadn’t felt _anyone_ do that before, not on purpose at least, and he chewed on the feeling as the Shiny Man stood up and retrieved his blaster and started walking back up the muddy ship’s tracks, towards the shiny ship.

By the time they reached the shiny ship – or, what remained of it – Grogu had decided that this just meant that the Shiny Man must be the _best_. He was shiny inside and out, and he didn’t do bad things when he was angry, and he did _really cool things_ like climb the side of the muddy ship while it was moving and protect Grogu from people who wanted to hit him with axes and make his own pain go away. And now he was inside the shiny ship being angry, but not doing bad things. He made some loud sounds and made the engines cough smoke, but Grogu didn’t think those counted, especially because he had specifically left Grogu outside while he did those things.

Grogu kind of wanted to see the inside of the shiny ship, actually. Was it like the Shiny Man, shiny on the inside, too? He climbed out of his pram and toddled up the ramp just as the Shiny Man sat down on something Grogu couldn’t quite see. His _angry_ was settling down into _tired_ and _resigned,_ which was another thing Grogu hadn’t felt before. Grogu reached the top of the ramp and looked around. It wasn’t very shiny in here, but maybe that was because those muddy ship people had taken so many parts. There was definitely a lot of sparky stuff that Grogu thought a ship probably shouldn’t normally have.

Grogu turned and looked at the Shiny Man. The Shiny Man was looking back at Grogu, sitting kind of slumped. Grogu made a curious noise, because what was the Shiny Man doing now? The Shiny Man just let out a sigh, then heaved himself up and grabbed Grogu by the back of his tunic to carry him down the ramp. Grogu made another, angrier noise. That was uncomfortable! But the Shiny Man only set Grogu back inside the pram and walked away from the shiny ship.

The Shiny Man walked away from the shiny ship for a long time. He gave Grogu another ration bar for lunch, but didn’t stop walking. Grogu wondered if the Shiny Man ate all his meals while walking. Standing in the pram for that long was boring, and then tiring, so Grogu lay down and took a nap for a little while. When he woke back up, the Shiny Man was still walking, and the sun was going down again. They were on another plain, and far, far in front of them Grogu could see a tiny bump that was maybe a house.

Grogu was less bored now, because he could feel some big animals near that maybe-house! It turned into an actual-house as they got closer, with a big pole outside that had a person on top doing something that sparked. Grogu wasn’t paying attention to that, though. The big animals were sleepy, except for the ones that were hungry, and Grogu hadn’t gotten to feel big animals doing things for a _long_ time. And then Grogu’s eyes widened and he gave an excited babble – there were _frogs_ here! He could feel them! He bounced up and down in the pram impatiently as the Shiny Man finally drew near the big pole and stopped, looking up at the person at the top.

The person said something, and the Shiny Man said something back – Grogu wasn’t listening. He was focused on the possibility of _frogs_. And then the Shiny Man was lifting Grogu down to the ground, and the person on the pole came down too, and Grogu _saw_ one of the frogs! He squealed in excitement and started chasing it, although he did pause to look up at the pole person when he passed by. The Shiny Man had called this person Kuiil, so Grogu would too. Kuiil was saying more things to the Shiny Man, who was saying more things back while he did something to an open panel on his arm armor.

Grogu didn’t listen to any of that. There was a frog _right there!_ He wanted to _eat_ it. It would be _so much better_ than the ration bars! He took a step closer to it, and it hopped one hop away. He took another step, and it didn’t move. He _lunged_ forward and landed with both hands on top of the frog, squishing it into the ground. He had caught it! He made a bunch of happy sounds and carefully shifted his grip so he could lift the frog without it getting away, then _shoved_ it in his mouth. It was so good! _Just_ like he’d thought it would be!

“Hey!” came the Shiny Man’s voice. “Spit that out!”

Grogu ignored him. The Shiny Man was good, but eating a frog was _better_. He tilted his head back and swallowed it whole, then grinned up at the Shiny Man.

The Shiny Man’s helmet dipped, then turned towards Kuiil. _Do you see this,_ his entire body said. Grogu was impressed. The Shiny Man could talk without saying things _or_ using the Force! Grogu didn’t understand why the Shiny Man was upset, though. Frogs were _good_.

The Shiny Man sighed and got down on one knee in front of Grogu. “Guess you don’t need dinner after that, huh?” he said. “No more frogs.”

Grogu squealed at the Shiny Man. The frog had filled him up, but he was _sure_ he could fit another one if he could catch it! The Shiny Man shook his head and turned away, going to help Kuiil do something. Kuiil had brought out a big flat hover-thing, and the Shiny Man helped him attach it to one of the big animals that Grogu had felt earlier. It was almost taller than the Shiny Man! Kuiil and the Shiny Man called it a _blurg,_ which Grogu thought was a good name. The Shiny Man wouldn’t let Grogu go say hi up close, though, and eventually Grogu plopped himself down on the ground and just pouted.

Kuiil loaded some things onto the seat on the blurg’s back, and then the Shiny Man picked Grogu up and set him back in his pram, which was sitting on top of the flat thing. It wasn’t hovering, which meant it was a little tilted to one side. The Shiny Man sat on a box at the front of the flat thing, and Kuiil climbed up on top of the blurg – which was _impressive,_ the blurg was so much taller than Kuiil! - and the blurg started walking… back the way the Shiny Man had come with Grogu earlier.

Grogu groaned. He didn’t _want_ to go back this way again! He looked pleadingly up at the Shiny Man, but the Shiny Man didn’t say anything, just looked back at him. Grogu pouted some more, and then it started _raining_.

That was too much for Grogu. He liked rain, usually, but he was tired from eating a whole frog and upset that he hadn’t gotten to say hi to the blurg and that they wouldn’t be going anywhere new. He burrowed under the blanket in his pram and shut his eyes tight. A second later, he heard the top slide closed, and it only took him a few minutes to fall asleep to the sound of rain _ping_ ing rhythmically on the pram and the big flat thing.

**Author's Note:**

> Please let me know if there's anything I should be tagging that I'm not!


End file.
